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Abstract
In this article we provide the results of a review study on parental involvement in children’s education
with a focus on the specific position of illiterate parents. Research results indicate that parental
involvement in children’s education matters. It matters for their achievement, motivation and well-
being at school. Over the last decade, parents and teachers are supposed to collaborate more and
more as partners in education. To establish these partnerships, the primacy is placed on teachers
and schools as they are the professional partners. The results of our review study reveal different
good practices to enhance parental involvement: from parent and teacher training programs to
reorganization of the school structure and family interventions. When illiterate parents want to be
involved in their children’s education, they are faced with many difficulties. Remarkably, the research
findings on the involvement of illiterate parents appeared to be limited, in contrast with the results
of our literature search on the topic of parental involvement in children’s education in general, which
was very extensive. However, we have found some good practices to foster the involvement of illiterate
parents in their children’s education.
Introduction
Parental involvement in children’s education matters. It matters for their achievement, motivation
and well-being at school. In past decades parental involvement in children’s education has
received considerable attention from many researchers and also has become a key component
in school policy and government policy concerning family education programs both in the US
and in Western Europe.
The aim of this review study is to get more insight in and to identify good practice in the
relation between parental involvement and children’s school achievement. This review study is
Conducting our review study we aimed to get more insight into the relation between parental
involvement and children’s school achievement in general, to detect good practices, and to
focus on the special position of illiterate parents. Therefore we have formulated the following
research questions:
1. What is known from the existing research literature on the relation between parental
involvement and children’s school achievement?
2. Which good practices can be identified from the existing research literature on the relation
between parental involvement and children’s school achievement?
3. What is known about the involvement of illiterate parents and their children’s school
achievement?
4. Which good practices can be identified from the existing research literature on the
involvement of illiterate parents and their children’s school achievement?
We have conducted a search in the following databases and search engines useful in an
academic setting for finding and accessing articles: Academic Search Premier, Catalogue UvA,
Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC), Google Scholar, PiCarta, PsycINFO and
Web of Science. We have used the keywords: parental involvement, illiterate parents, parents
and school, parents and teachers, parents and homework, parent participation and academic
achievement, educational partners, families as educational partners, parent-school collaboration,
parent involvement and low literacy / illiteracy, parents and low literacy, home literacy, illiterate
parents and Dutch equivalents of these keywords. We have limited the selection of literature to
6
llThis project is subsidised by the Dutch Foundation Innovation Alliance (SIA - Stichting Innovatie Alliantie)
with funding from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 145
recent research work (approximately 10 years old) that was characterised by a high degree of
citation (> 10). Furthermore we compared the lists of references of the meta-analysis studies
we found for equivalent references. Remarkably, the result of our literature search on the topic
of parental involvement and school achievement in general was very extensive. In contrast
with this the research findings on the involvement of illiterate parents appeared to be limited.
With the four research questions in mind, we have analysed and interpreted the found
literature thoroughly. This article is structured on the basis of the four research questions
formulated above.
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 147
ago parents were considered to be responsible for bringing up and raising their children at home
and teachers were responsible for the education of children at the school (teaching). Nowadays
we see parents in the role of teachers and teachers are becoming educators in a more general
sense. Teachers and parents are becoming jointly responsible for the education of children, both
at home and in the school situation. From separate responsibilities of parents and teachers on
children’s social and learning development, research reports a shift towards a form of partnership
(Epstein, 2001). This collective responsibility is represented in Epstein’s model as shown below.
A crucial factor in establishing and maintaining forms of partnership in the education of students
is mutual trust between parents and teachers. Adams & Christenson (2000) found that the relation
between parents and school is at a higher level in elementary school than in middle school or
other higher school levels. As children grow older the level of trust between family and school
declines from both parties involved. One of the facets that were identified as very important
to enhance trust between parents and school is a high level of home-school communication.
The quality of the home-school communication seems to be a better predictor of trust than
the frequency of home-school contacts or demographic variables. Open communication is a
frequently found keyword in reports on the relation between school and family (Fantuzzo et al.,
2004; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005).
On the other hand criticism has been revealed concerning the concept of equality between
parents’ and teachers’ responsibility. Lareau (1997) concludes that teachers do not strive for
equality with parents. Teachers expect parents to respect their professionalism in schools and
their decisions in the classrooms. In this context Dom (2006) speaks of ‘struggle or partnership
between parents and teachers’ (Dom, 2006, p. 50). According to Todd & Higgins (1998) the
sustaining of equality is hindered by the fact that the element ‘power’ is always present in the
relation between parents and teachers. In view of this circumstance Todd & Higgins (1998) state
that parents and teachers occupy their own position on behalf of the child, whereby parents’
Although the idea of ‘equality’ between parents and teachers can be criticised and teachers
sometimes show a resistance to parents interfering with their work (Todd & Higgins, 1998;
De Carvalho, 2001; Addi-Raccah & Arviv-Elyashiv, 2008), the initiative to establish forms of
partnership as good practice often lies with schools and teachers and it is seen as part of their
professional responsibility. Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2005) state that evidence has been found
for the fact that teachers and schools are not very well prepared for educational partnership.
School environment, school climate, school structure and management practices influence
parents’ and teachers’ ideas about parental involvement and forms of partnership. In the initial
and post initial teacher training programs teachers could be made more aware of the many
aspects of parent-school relationships besides informing parents about children’s learning and
progress. They could be taught knowledge and skills in order to make parents feel that they are
welcome in the school and that they are respected by the school staff as partners in education.
Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2005) presented a list of strategies that could be used to reinforce
parental involvement and educational partnership. This list could be seen as a good practice
and is used in the schools, which are connected to our Almere project. The school strategies
are concentrated around topics like: invitation and communication, empowerment of teachers
and parents, school structure and school policy.
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 149
Table 1. List of strategies to increase schools’ capacities for inviting parental involvement (Hoover-
Dempsey et al., 2005, p. 118)
In families where parents experience difficulties in reading and writing, there is a danger that
low literacy is passed on to the next generation (Cooter, 2006). Dearing et al. (2004); Cooter
(2006) and Lynch (2009) put forward that the importance of literacy development stretches far
beyond children’s school achievements. Well-developed literacy ability is an important condition
for children’s development in other intellectual and social areas (Dearing et al., 2004; Patall
et al., 2008). Literacy difficulties could lead to all sorts of problems in social, economic and
community contexts, such as high drop out rates, juvenile delinquency and welfare costs. Our
society is more and more demanding when people’s literacy skills are concerned, thus the costs
of literacy problems for society are likely to increase (Dearing et al., 2004).
The notion of intergenerational illiteracy (Cooter, 2006) draws attention to the involvement of
illiterate parents in their children’s school development. Remarkably, the result of our literature
search on the topic of parental involvement and school achievement in general was very extensive;
however research-findings on the involvement of illiterate parents appeared to be limited.
According to UNESCO1 world wide some 800 million people are not or not sufficiently able to
read and write. That is about 15% of the world’s population. For the Dutch situation figures show
an adult illiteracy rate of 13%. This means that in The Netherlands around 1.5 million adults
have inadequate reading and writing skills (Houtkoop, 1999). A considerable part of these 1.5
million adults are parents.
Cooter (2006) reveals a number of mechanisms which could be responsible for intergenerational
illiteracy: a lack of strong language examples, little child-parent interaction and lack of quality
print materials like books and newspapers. Besides that Cooter (2006) makes a connection
1
www.unesco.org (May 2010)
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 151
between a poor language development and poverty. Also Leseman & De Jong (1998) found that
among poor families parents speak less and with less variation to their children than parents
with a higher socio-economic status. From research on the relation between home literacy and
children’s language learning Leseman & De Jong (1998) conclude that there are four facets
which ought to be considered: the opportunity for children to be exposed to literacy (e.g. reading
parents), the quality of reading instruction by parents, cooperation between parent and child
(role agreement) and the social-emotional quality of the parent-child relation.
Since the authorisation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) and its
reauthorisation in 2002 (no child left behind act) in the US, several family education programs
have been implemented. Schools were encouraged to seek partners in education. Duch
(2005) presented an evaluation of some of the two-generation programs: Comprehensive Child
Development Program, Even Start Family Literacy Program, Head Start Family Service Centers,
New Chance and New Hope. In these programs parental involvement in learning is emphasised
often trough empowerment strategies, preschool programs and welfare programs. Liaisons
between Head Start and public schools can be found in the ‘Schools for the 21st Century-model’
(cf. Anderson-Butcher, 2004). In this model schools are not only places for education, but places
where childcare, learning and family service comes together.
Taking the specific position of illiterate parents into account, research shows that intervention
with adults in adult literacy programs is not always very successful. Cooter (2006) found that
annually 50-75% of the adults enrolled in adult literacy programs drop out within the first month.
One of the explanations could be that poor people must hold several minimum-wage jobs to
support their families so there is not much time left for learning.
Cooter (2006) provides a number of strategies, which teachers could use to help illiterate parents
succeed in helping their children to become strong readers. The emphasis is on what parents
can do, not on what parents are not able to do. On the classroom level teachers could instruct
parents on homework assignments and what is expected of parents in their role of homework
assistant. Schools could promote and teach parents in: a. dialogic reading: the child leads the
conversation around the pictures of a book; b. the use of strategies to improve the length of
children’s sentences; c. the use of complete sentences when speaking to the child; d. the use
of books the children can handle; e. effective play with their children en spending more time
talking to them; f. the use of toys as mediator of spontaneous language use.
In aid of the specific group of illiterate and low literate parents teachers in primary education
could play an important role (Smith & Elish-Piper, 2002). One cannot expect parents who lack
the basic skills of reading to provide books as means of education or to judge whether or not a
learning moment occurs while looking at a picture book with their child (Zeece, 2005).
Conclusions
In this article we report on a review study we have conducted to get more insight in the relation
between parental involvement and children’s school achievement in general, to detect good
practices, and to focus on the special position of illiterate parents in this matter.
By addressing our first research question, we have found strong evidence of the positive
influence of parental involvement in children’s education on school achievement, learning
motivation, perseverance and social behavior of children. The most determinative factors
in parental involvement are ‘good parenthood in the home situation’ and ‘parents’ beliefs in
and high expectations of their children’s success in school’. However, it is hard to draw more
precise conclusions. The definition of parental involvement used in research is not unambiguous
and many intertwining factors have to be taken into account as the nature and intensity of
parental involvement in children’s education differs and takes place under different conditions.
Remarkable however is the positive correlation between parental involvement and verbal and
reading achievements in contrast with the negative correlation between parental involvement
and mathematics achievement.
During the last decade, it is more and more accepted to hold teachers and parents jointly
responsible for the education of children, both at home and in the school situation. Mutual trust
and equality appear to be important elements of this so called educational partnership, but the
establishment of mutual trust and equality is not self-evident. Differences in power, expertise and
background appear to play a disturbing role. Establishing educational partnership is therefore
often seen as a part of the professional responsibility of teachers and schools.
This brings us to our second research question about good practices of fostering parental
involvement. From the research literature we have found that good practices are featured by
inviting parents, communicating with parents, empowering teachers and parents, adapting the
structure of the school organization and reformulating and implementing school-wide policy in
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 153
this matter. In our ‘Almere project’ we noticed the first signs of a positive impact in the schools
of the implementation of these good practices. An open inviting school climate and coordinated
school activities appear to foster parents’ involvement in children’s learning. In the practice of
Almere the keyword also seems to be ‘open communication’.
The results of our review study also indicate that differences between parents should be
taken into account, while enhancing parental involvement in children’s education. Here we
have concentrated on the position of illiterate parents. Our third research question asked about
the involvement of illiterate parents and their children’s school achievement. We have found
mechanisms responsible for intergenerational illiteracy: a lack of strong language examples, little
child-parent interaction and lack of quality print materials. Teachers and schools appear to play
an important role in stimulating the involvement of illiterate parents in their children’s education.
However, the results of our literature search for this review in different academic databases on
this topic are rather limited. We have to conclude that over the last years this field of research
has not received much attention.
Addressing our fourth and last research question about good practices of fostering parental
involvement of illiterate parents, we found that teachers best focus on what illiterate parents can
do and not on what they are not able to do. Good practices appear to be: activities which establish
a connection between home and school by which knowledge of the home and school situation
is revealed, parent instructions concerning their role as home work assistant and performer
in reading instructions and child-parent conversations. Teachers could show illiterate parents
what a rich language environment looks like and show them trough modeling and coaching how
parents could help their children in their literacy development and by that in their intellectual
and social development.
We finish this article by concluding that it is worthwhile for (teachers in) schools to invest in
relationships with parents in order to enhance their involvement in their child(ren)s’ education
as parental involvement matters for children’s achievement, motivation and well-being at school.
The involvement of illiterate parents is especially important in order to avoid intergenerational
illiteracy. Therefore it deserves more and special attention of researchers, policy makers and
practitioners in education than is does now.
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Biographical notes
Adri Menheere (MA) is senior lecturer en researcher at the School of Education, Amsterdam
University of Applied Sciences. He is a member of the research group School and Environment
and ETEN’s Thematic Interest Group Urban Education. Edith H. Hooge (PhD) is research leader
of the Research Program Urban Education at the School of Education, Amsterdam University
of Applied Sciences.
13. Parental involvement in children’s education: A review study about the effect of parental involvement
on children’s school education with a focus on the position of illiterate parents 157